Charges for young drivers in Portugal

Young driver car hire in Lisbon – avoid extra charges as a young driver in Portugal

Virtually all car rental companies establish minimum and maximum age limits for its customers – drivers. Those limits rarely ever overlap with the solutions established by law. While in most countries an 18 years old can drive a motorized vehicle, provided that he (or she) holds a valid driver’s license, the same age will be often considered insufficient when trying to rent a car.

In order to limit any potential damage caused to the fleet by inexperienced drivers, most car hire companies in worldwide do not offer their services to the youngest drivers, even if with an immaculate driving record.

In Europe, most car rental companies require the driver to be 23-25 years old to be able to rent a car without any additional age-related charges. At the same time, the minimum age for car hire customers is usually set at 21. This means that if you are in your early twenties, but do not comply with the recommendable driver’s age, you will still be able to rent a car at an additional cost, usually referred to as the young driver’s fee.

Please note, however, that sometimes there might be exemptions from the above driver’s age policy; we have seen local car rental companies in some countries, including Portugal, accepting drivers from 18 years of age. Usually at an additional charge, though.

Driver´s age in Lisbon car hireCar rental offers available through Cartrawler search engine on www.lisbon-cheap-car-hire.co.uk at, for example Lisbon Airport, usually define the driver’s age between 23 and 25. Below are the driver’s age policies from some of the Lisbon Airport car hire companies, for a random week rental in September 2015:

Goldcar – driver’s age 25-99; young driver’s age: 21-24; young driver charge: 6 EUR per day

Drive on Holiday – driver’s age: 24 to 75, young driver’s age: 19-23; young driver charge: EUR 7.5 per day

In most car rental companies there is a (variable) limit of young driver’s surcharges. A young driver in Portugal will only pay the additional fees up to a defined amount, regardless of how long is the rental. The limit of total young driver charges is also stated in ‘Rental conditions’.

Please note that all offers quoted required the driver to hold the license for at least a year.

How to avoid young driver’s charges when hiring a car in Lisbon?The availability of internet search engines of car hire makes it easy now to find the offer for car rental which best suits your needs. Before booking, always read thoroughly car rental conditions, paying special attention to aspects which may potentially increase the total cost of the rental. Amongst those are: the excess, fuel and mileage policy and, if you are less than 25 years old, also driver’s age requirements.